


a hairclip, an empty thermos, and a usb drive

by leradny



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Amnesiac Character, Gen, egyptian mythology - Freeform, give me all of vicious amnesiac spirit of vengeance atem, i love the early manga, i say as i focus entirely on fierce yet noble and compassionate atem, season zero, sometimes you just gotta fucking SET SOMEONE ON FIRE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 13:58:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12082458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leradny/pseuds/leradny
Summary: 'Destruction comes so easily to me,' he thinks, staring down at the pale and unmoving Anzu. 'I've killed men with a thought; yet healing a friend is beyond my power.'





	a hairclip, an empty thermos, and a usb drive

A flash of anger, panic, desperation, and then _he_ awakes.

Back straightening, fingers curling into fists, chin tilted up, every inch now charged with assurance and pride. He flicks through the memories of other self like an open book; the entire night tumbles through his head. A strange man had shown up in the night and knocked on the door, politely enough that Anzu and Yugi both answered. Yet, when he insisted on seeing Solomon Motou, they instinctively refused to let the man in.

Before they knew it, there was a fight--the man grabbed Anzu by the hair so viciously that the clip fell to the ground, taking strands of chestnut hair with it. She fought, though, and something fell out of his suit pocket.

He picks up the object, unsure of its name. A small, flimsy, weight on his fingers, barely the size of his thumb. Black and smooth but nothing like any metal work he has ever seen.

 _It's a flash drive,_ his other self says. _It's got a whole bunch of fake evidence that my Grandpa is stealing money to keep the shop running. We can't afford a good enough lawyer to prove him wrong--if he sends that out, we'll have to close the shop for good!_

The particulars are lost to him, but _blackmail_  is a simple concept.

Something rolls underneath his foot. He traps it in place, then crouches to pick up the flask. Thermos, his other self supplies. It's empty, water spreading all over the floor. He bristles at the sight of his friend, unconscious on the ground.

"Pardon me," he says, dangling the drive from his fingers. "You dropped this." He drops the usb into the thermos with a clank and stoppers it.

The man lunges forward. "Give that back, you little--"

"You may take it and go," he says smoothly, "If you can win this game."

Shadows curl around his fingers, his sharp-edged smile, the corners of the room. Multiplying the images of the thermos in his hand. A pyramid of identical steel bottles. He tosses the one with the drive into the mix, and the pyramid topples.

"Find the right bottle within three tries, and you win. Lose--or try to cheat--and you must suffer a penalty game."

The man throws a fist at him.

He dodges.

"You have damaged innocent reputations with lies, and exploited other people’s secrets for your own personal gain," he snaps. This too strikes a chord as familiar as gold, and death. He loathes dishonor. "But let me tell you: Two can keep a secret, if one of them forgets!" He knows the true ending of that proverb very well. But perhaps he has softened somewhat. Rather than kill the man, he simply wipes the man’s memory in a shadowy burst of magic. The attacker falls unconscious where, before, he might have died.

\- - -

In the quiet, he calms.

Foregoing his other self's return, he stays a bit longer to cautiously lift Anzu's head. Still breathing, but she remains unconscious despite how many times he calls her name. He tries to make the shadows do his bidding as before, to heal instead of injure; but even in the weak light they scatter, as useless as butterflies.

He dares not try again in case he worsens her injuries, and scrutinizes all his knowledge of magic before realizing with a sinking feeling: He does not know how to heal.

The memories of his other self are bright and simple, filled with names and relationships and other minutiae. But he closes the connection to his other self--because he cannot bear the thought of someone else seeing his uncertainty. Anyway, charming as they are, that knowledge will not help him now.

There are no memories for him to peruse outside of his other self's life. Nothing is truly familiar except the heavy weight of gold and death against his chest. He has been locked within the Millennium Puzzle for so many years that it is essentially his heart, a thing stained and ravaged by time and thievery and bloodshed. He remembers something else--the softness, clarity, and beauty of pure gold. His speech falls with grace into the rhythm of formality. How does he know these things which his other self has never experienced? But he never has time to find an answer.

 _Destruction comes so easily to me,_ he thinks, staring down at the pale and unmoving Anzu. _I've killed men with a thought; yet healing a friend is beyond my power._

 _No!_ he responds, as viciously as if speaking to someone else. _I must not despair! I have had enough of that! I thought to heal her, and therefore it is possible. I know I can heal Anzu if I try! It is only because there has been no one to heal save myself, and so many opponents to defeat._

A flurry of names and images come to mind, unbidden: Ra the shining one, hawk-headed, who he feels a strong kinship towards--but Ra has little to do with healing. Gentle Isis would serve well in this situation, but try as he might, she is as good as a stranger. He cannot reach her. Then who? Surely there is someone--someone who can help him--

_Who dares call on me? On Sekhmet, war-goddess!_

A dark-skinned woman, tall and beautiful, roars into his mind's eye. Sheathed in red with the mane of a lioness, Sekhmet would be terrifying if she was not firmly on his side. (How does he know this? What kind of man is he to ally with warrior gods?) Sekhmet spears her enemies in battle, and afterwards heals her allies of their wounds.

 _Sekhmet, help me!_ he pleads.

A strand of red energy coils out from the puzzle to brush against Anzu’s face. Color returns to her pale cheeks and her breathing eases into the rhythm of sleep.

He catches sight of their attacker, still unconscious. Perhaps he should clear the battlefield, so to speak, before his other self returns. He lifts a hand and teleports the man to the corner rather than their doorstep. Then he calls the authorities, alerting them to an unconscious man nearby. As the ambulance arrives, he shuts the door firmly and locks it, returns Anzu to her chair, and then at last retreats into the puzzle.

\- - -

"Yugi! Yugi!"

"Huh?" Yugi wakes up to Anzu shaking him, a sour taste in his mouth and red light pulsing outside.

"We must have dozed off doing our homework. A guy collapsed on the street. There's an ambulance there and everything."

"Oh, no!" Yugi squints out the window. "I hope he's okay."


End file.
